


Unspoken Words

by owleys



Category: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: F/M, Gen, Link is a little shit, Mute!Link, also if you couldn't tell it's not canon compliant, childhood enemies to friends to lovers, good ending au lmao, i love them, zelda is such a bitch, zelink
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:48:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26189785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owleys/pseuds/owleys
Summary: Zelda is thirteen when she meets Link. Five years before he is Champion of Hyrule, he is just Link, her personal guard.She hates him. He also hates her.It is going to be a long five years.
Relationships: Link/Zelda (Legend of Zelda)
Comments: 54
Kudos: 119





	1. in which a princess meets her guard.

**Author's Note:**

> hellooooo this is my first fic ever?? wack i know. anyway i just wanted the boys to have a good ending so this is my au,, also wanted childhood enemies to friends to lovers zelink, so like enjoy!!
> 
> also this is a very early draft hopefully it's not too shit

Zelda had just reached her thirteenth spring when they’d assigned him as her protector.

Her father, the King, had come in to personally wake her, which was already unusual in itself. She'd blinked blearily in the red-gold morning light, barely registering her father's towering figure. 

Then, a runtish boy entered after him. His unkempt nut-brown hair ran loosely over his shoulders—shoulders which barely reached her father’s waist. He was peering curiously, and rather rudely, at her still in her bedclothes.

She’d wrinkled her nose, laid back down, and tugged the blanket over her head.

“Zelda.” The steel in her father’s voice was enough to make her struggle into a seated position, though she kept the blanket wrapped around her like a cloak.

The boy was still staring at her. What she'd originally mistaken as pure childish curiosity in his cloudy blue eyes was actually more akin to a cool evaluation.

She pulled the blanket tighter under her chin, and shifted her gaze to her father.

“Yes, Father?” She was bordering on insolence with her tone, but he was the one that had chosen to barge in on her with some freckled child.

“This is Link,” he boomed. “He has been assigned as your guardian.” Her father ushered Link out in front of him. 

It was immediately apparent that the boy was incredibly short, and rather scrawny. Zelda was sure if she stood next to him she'd have two hands height over him. This was to be her protector? She snorted softly.

He still had that piercing gaze fixed on her. The smirk slipped off her face as they regarded each other. His thin, pointy face was littered with brown freckles. He looked like a simple peasant; what was so special about him that he was to be made her guard?

The king nodded at Link, and he gave Zelda a close-lipped smile. She did not return it.

“Now, boy"—he motioned Link towards the door—"leave us.” 

The boy gave a short bow, then turned and left. The door shut with a soft thud.

Zelda crossed her arms and leveled a venomous look at her father. “What is the meaning of this? A peasant boy? Does he have any train—”

“He possesses the triforce, just as you do. There is no need for such a tone with me.” He fixed her with a heavy stare. Despite her earlier defiance, Zelda had hung her head and avoided his eyes.

He seemed about to say something else, but must have decided against it. Whatever it was, Zelda did not get to hear it. He did not say goodbye when he left; he didn't need to, for he was the king, and she only his daughter.

And that was that. Link was her personal guard, to follow wherever she may go—silently and steadfastly.

She later learned that the decision to make Link her guard had been unanimously agreed on by the council and her father. It was a perfect match: the holder of the Triforce of Courage to guard the Goddess-Blood Princess, holder of the Triforce of Wisdom. He was also, allegedly, a natural swordsman. All in all, he would protect her as well as his destiny allowed, which, fortunately, meant he could protect her better than any other mortal.

Zelda avoided him as much as possible. If there was an opportunity to slip away from him, then she would take it, skidding over leaves and dewy grass in the woods, or slipping into crowds and around convenient corners. It had been easier when she was younger; she had been inseparable from the normal Hylian child. 

Somehow, though, no matter how carefully she hid, he always found her. She’d turn around and find him standing there behind her, the smallest smirk twisting his lips. He was infuriating.

*

The summer breeze ran past, cooling the sweat that stuck Zelda’s tunic to her back. She yearned to run with it, but her pony was only plodding along, keeping pace with her riding instructor, Nossa. 

He’d been lecturing her about posture or something dull like that five minutes ago. She listened for a moment to hear him mention “lady-like”, and promptly stopped listening once again.

She slid her gaze over to the boy riding on her other side, slightly behind as per his position. She was sure it had been a subtle movement, but as soon as she looked at him, his eyes flicked from scanning the field to staring right at her. 

Zelda held his gaze, trying to decipher any light shining behind those clouded eyes. It had been about six moons since he had been assigned to her, and he had not said a single thing to her.

She would be changing that. For scientific purposes, of course.

“Nossa,” she interjected with a firm nod in the tutor’s direction. She did not take her eyes from Link. “Link.”

She firmly tapped the pony’s rear, and they were off.

Wind streamed past, tearing at Zelda’s hair and ripping it free of its tidy braid. She dug her heels into the pony’s side, glancing back to see their figures retreating into the distance. Link showed no sign of any reaction, meanwhile Nossa was flapping his arms in the air like a flightless bird.

She snorted. See how Nossa liked her posture now, bent over this pony’s neck as she galloped away from his silly lessons. 

The wind seared her face as she and Storm thundered over the bridge towards the Lanayru Wetlands. It was a bright, zesty cold that cooled her teeth as she grinned wildly. 

She glanced behind her again, only half expecting Link and Nossa to be specks in the distance. She wasn't surprised, then, when she noticed Link speeding after her on his little black pony.

Her smile widened as he came closer to her.She whipped around to look at him. “I’ll race you to the boulder!” The words were torn from her mouth and flung in his direction.

Zelda thought she saw a hint of a smile cross his lips. Satisfied, she turned and patted her pony’s neck, urging it to go faster. She grinned, more freely than she had in days.

The grass was a blur beneath her, the sky an open dome. As the wind buoyed her spirits, Zelda let go of the reins and lifted her face to the sky, arms outstretched to the sun.

For a moment, she was flying. World blurred in her vision. Head empty of worrisome thoughts. Just her and the sky and the wind.

She must have dug her heels in too hard. Her pony faltered, skittering to a stop and rearing her stubby little legs. Zelda shrieked, clutching at the pony’s mane. Its whinny mirrored her own scream, and she could only clutch at its mane helplessly as it proceeded to buck.

It bucked again, dislodging her hands. It was the third buck that lifted her clear off its back. She was tipping over the pony’s shoulder, and the air now ripping at her. She outstretched her arms, as if she could catch herself.

The next moment she was falling. Zelda felt the world tip and was reminded of the ground beneath her, landing with a crack and a thud.

Black swamped her vision as the pain seared up her right arm, still trapped beneath her. She must have screamed again. Coughing and hacking, she couldn't breathe. Dust coated the inside of her mouth. She made a pathetic croaking noise, lungs wringing themselves for breath.

When the darkness cleared, she found herself lying facedown on the ground. Her neck was sore and her head spun and little whorls of black were pulsating at the edges of her gaze. The sun was searingly bright. Pain lanced up and down her arm like a lightning bolt was being back and forth inside her—not that she had ever experience that, though this was painful enough to fit what she imagined it would feel like. A groan escaped her lips as she tried to shift her torso, feeling suddenly nauseous.

The ground thundered loudly in the ear that was pressed to the earth. She winced, head beginning to pound. Four black hooves approached her. 

A pair of worn brown boots landed with a little puff of loose dirt. She blinked, and found Link staring directly at her. He was crouched beside her, angling himself so he was face-to-face with her.

Link’s eyes moved rapidly over her face. He must have been scanning her for signs of injury. Not like he could tell by the fact that she was lying sprawled on the ground like an invalid. 

“I'm very obviously not alright,” Zelda told him huffily, the words filtered with a little dry croak. “You can stop looking at me like that.”

She wanted to sit up to prove to him that she was fine, but what ended up happening was her letting out a pathetic whimper as she tried to shift her right arm from underneath her. Her vision darkened once again, and she swore using words she’d only ever heard her father murmur—just in time for Nossa’s late arrival.

“Your highness! Are you alright?” he exclaimed shrilly. “Also that is filthy language!” he added with a pompous shake of his head.

Zelda snorted. It was always the same with him. “Well?” She directed this at Link; Nossa had proven to be an imbecile. “Are you going to help?”

Link threw her a rather dirty look, but stood and slipped his arms under hers. Without any warning—Zelda supposed he had no way of giving any—he hoisted her up.

Zelda nearly slumped forwards again from the pain that bolted from her wrist to her shoulder and all the way down her spine. She swore again, Nossa be damned. Link caught her under the arms again.

“Your highness! What were you thinking?” The shrill tone of Nossa’s voice was not helping the pounding that was building up on the inside of Zelda’s skull. She weakly lifted her left hand in a gesture for him to stop speaking, though she was glad he didn't mention the swearing again.

“Honestly, it's a wonder it took you so long to injure yourself! We must get you a physician for your wrist before it's permanently maimed.” 

Zelda closed her eyes. Maybe if she closed them for long enough she could fall unconscious and wake up in her bed with a nice book or her research papers. The fire would be crackling, homely in its hearth. She'd be tucked under her blankets, both of her arms normal and functioning. Nossa would have sodden off, Link would be gone—

Her fantasy was interrupted by Nossa, any signs of unconsciousness flew off like birds given a fright. “I shall ride back to the palace!” Nossa proclaimed this as if it was a great treacherous journey he was to brave.“You, boy, look after the princes—as you should've been before.”

Zelda opened an eye to watch Nossa ride away. When he was out of earshot, she said, quite testily, “He’s right, you know. You should have been there to catch me, or to stop me riding off so fast in the first place. It's your responsibility, don't you think?”

Link said nothing. She was uncomfortably aware of the way she was lying against him. It was quite inappropriate for a princess to be cavorting with a commoner like this, even if he was very professionally only touching her where necessary. 

“Also, where has that damned pony gone? Must you sit here with me like that?”

She leaned forward slightly to separate herself from him, and turned her head to eye him.

“You know it's rude to ignore your princess like that. I could...I could have you in the dungeons.” She wasn't actually sure if she could do that, considering he'd been personally assigned by her father and the council, but it was worth a shot.

Still, he said nothing, though the corner of his left eye had crinkled slightly. She wasn't sure if he was laughing at her or whether he was plotting her death.

Though, to be fair, if he wanted her dead he could've done it moons ago. And, he was also the holder of the Triforce of Courage—it would be quite uncourageous of him to murder her, she supposed. Nevertheless, he was thoroughly irritating, murderous or not.

She made sure to eye him with extra malice. 

After a little, she grew bored of his blankness and tried to find other ways of entertaining herself. 

The sky was a clear blue. No clouds in sight; nothing to look at. Zelda rolled her eyes. She hated broad sunshine like this.

They were sitting on grass—plain, simple grass. There were not even any wildflowers. The grass rippled rather prettily in the wind though.

As soon as she thought this, the wind died down. She scoffed, and turned back around to Link. “I don't suppose you have something to do, do you?” she asked haughtily. She noticed a small leather pouch tied to his belt. “I am rather bored,” she added, hoping her expression was akin to beseeching him with her eyes.

Link blinked slowly at her, resembling the hightail lizards that Zelda sometimes saw hanging off of trees and walls. Except Link was not hanging off a tree or a wall; he was just looking at her with what she was afraid was judgement.

She huffed suddenly and turned away from him. She would've crossed her arms if she could have. “Oh, don't bother. You're useless either way.”

There was a second when she thought he hadn't reacted to that at all. She was startled then, when he shifted behind her and held something out to her. A little leather-bound journal, and a charcoal pencil.

She took them rather gingerly. “Thank you,” she mumbled, feeling a bit guilty about essentially bullying him into giving her something that looked personal. This was new territory though. Maybe she'd finally understand what went on behind those blanketed eyes!

She fumbled slightly while using her left hand, but managed to get it open. It was, surprisingly, full of neat sketches and doodles. Everything had a distinct leftward smudge to it. She wondered if he was left-handed. He'd never drawn his sword in front of her before, but now that she thought about it, his scabbard was on his right hip rather than his left. 

Link reached around her and flipped past the full pages, settling on an empty one. Zelda was simultaneously relieved to know he hadn't just offered her, a rather rude acquaintance, to awkwardly look through his drawings and disappointed that she was not allowed this glimpse into his psyche.

He held out a hand for the book and pencil, which she dropped into his hand, rather unwillingly. She listened to the quick scrawl of the pencil across the rough paper as he drew something. 

After a moment, he handed it back to her. She stared. It was her, from just before. Hair loose in the wind, arms raised to herald the world.

She looked ridiculous. What had she been thinking, doing that? And now it was forever preserved in Link’s book of drawings.

“Why did you draw that?” she snapped, turning to glare at him.

He blinked, then shrugged. Zelda huffed. “Surely you can write an explanation down.”

Link, for the first time, looked somewhat frustrated. He firmly tugged the journal from her grip and thrust it back into her hands, now with a dark cross in the middle of the page.

Zelda stared at it, uncomprehending at first. She realised what it meant with a sinking feeling in her stomach. She peeked over her shoulder at Link, whose lips had settled into a thin line. Two pink spots glowed from his cheeks.

“Oh,” was all she could say. She fixed her eyes on a tree in the distance, wondering what she could say to him. What an absolute dolt she was, forgetting the infinite stream of tutors and ink and parchment that she was afforded for nothing but her circumstance of birth.

Before she'd come up with something both consoling and unpatronising, he’d already snatched back the journal and drawn something else. This new drawing he ripped out of the book and pushed into her hand.

It was obviously meant to be her, with the long hair and the characteristic slant of her nose. Her expression was wrong, though. Her eyebrows were unnaturally slanted downwards, and he'd drawn her lips turned down at the corners. She looked positively malevolent, nothing like who she was meant to be. 

Zelda blinked back the prickling that had started in her eyes. She didn't dare look at Link. Instead of ripping it to shreds and letting the breeze carry it away, she folded it neatly and tucked it into her own pouch, hands shaking all the while. This was what he truly thought of her then. She told herself it was just a drawing; it didn’t mean anything. Link meant nothing to her at all. Yet she'd folded it up to keep.

Finally, when she'd drawn together the shreds of herself and blinked away all of the prickliness, she pushed herself off Link, staggered to her feet and fixed him with a glare. “You've made a silly mistake. I can show this to my father at any moment, and you would be punished gravely,” she spat.

He gave her an equally vicious glare—finally, something else showing behind the glass, she thought with smug glee—and also stood up. Zelda took immense satisfaction in the fact that he had to look up at her.

“It would do you well to watch your step,” she told him imperiously. “I don’t care if you are a wielder of the Triforce. I will make your life miserable.”

His lips twisted, but he did not move. She wanted him to do something, anything. Pull his sword on her, slap her, scream in her face. Would he ever do anything of his own will?

The thundering of hooves in the distance interrupted her scheming. She turned and saw Nossa waving, a woman on the horse behind him.

Zelda glanced back at Link, half-expecting him to be glaring at her back, and found him managing the horses. Back to passivity it was.


	2. in which Link makes a pretty but peculiar friend.

Link’s sword clinked against the shield on his back, the sound lost in the hubbub of the streets of castle-town. The late afternoon sun was beginning her decline, twilight welcoming the opening taverns. People jostled past him, shouting and laughing with one another. Link, meanwhile, ducked his head down and stuck to the walls of the buildings around them, tucking his satchel against his front. He’d made sure the cloth he’d wrapped around the distinctive hilt and pommel of his sword were hidden. He did not feel like bringing attention to himself today.

“Link?”

He looked up suddenly at the voice and saw Mam.

Then he was running, all the way into her arms. There was no other word to describe how she smelt but warm, of woodsmoke and spices. Link let himself relax in her tight embrace, breathing in her familiar scent.

“What are you doing here?” She held him at arm’s length, inspecting him. “You know I’m about to leave…Oh.” She’d finally noticed the satchel then.

Link nodded, beaming with pride. _‘The king gave me permission,’_ he told her, the words coming back to his fingers, a little misshapen from disuse.

His majesty had allowed him the week’s end off, following what had happened with Zelda. He had pulled Link aside and let him know, rather kindly, that he would be able to attend his mother’s trip to the Zora Domain. He’d also told him to tell him all he saw there. “I trust you very much, you know that?” he’d murmured. Link had only nodded, too busy yearning to see his mother again to properly process the implications of the king’s order.

Mam tucked a loose strand of his hair behind his ear. Her eyes were a faded blue, not as sharp as his own, though he could still see his own face reflected in hers. It seemed as if the worn lines on her cheeks had deepened in Link’s absence, though she still smiled brightly enough to warm him from the inside out. 

She planted a soft kiss on his forehead, and turned towards the door of the little townhouse. “Come on then, have some supper with your old mother.”

Link followed her inside, observing the cramped but cozy space. In front of the fireplace, a worn red rug lay over the hewn brick flooring. The straw had recently been freshened, and carried with it a familiar musky scent. Link spotted his favourite stool from when he was a child, the wood still notched when he’d accidentally taken a knife to it. He smiled at the memory. It was settled in a congregation of wooden chairs around the fireplace, with a few already taken.

Someone peered around at the door closing, and in the uncertain light of the fireplace, Link almost couldn't recognise her.

“Pipsqueak, don't tell me you've forgotten your favourite Auntie Erel already!” 

Link grinned. _‘Of course not,’_ he signed, before leaping into her outstretched arms. She squeezed him tight around the shoulders and shook him about like she'd done when he was half the size he was now. 

“He's grown so big,” she exclaimed to Mam as she let him go. “Nearly a real knight, you are.” Link couldn’t help the flicker of pride that leapt up at Erel’s words, even when Mam tsked loudly. Link saw the look she shot at Auntie Erel, who just shrugged. Neither of them had said a name, and yet, he knew whom they were speaking of. 

Supper happened without incident, lounging around the fire. After he’d wolfed down his mother’s signature pork noodle soup (and his favourite food ever), Link informed them of the highlights of his work as the princess’ personal guard. “Is she nice?” Mam had asked slyly. He had been about to answer with the truth, and then decided against it—recalling how well she’d reacted to that sketch of her.

 _‘Yes, she is very nice.’_ He picked at a flake in the table as he signed this slowly with one hand. She wouldn’t ever know that he’d said that about her, which he was fine with.

“Ah, but is she anything else but nice? All of these nobles are nice,” Mam said. “Does she say ‘hello’ to her maidservants? Does she speak up when she thinks something different to someone else? What I’m saying, Link”—she fixed him in a serious gaze—“is that you should be careful who you call a friend.”

“Ah, sister, so serious all the time. I personally think it’s adorable. A princess and her best friend, who also happens to be her knight.”

Mam’s glare was so sharp it crackled in the air between her and Auntie Erel. She stared back reproachfully. Link glanced between them, willing someone to say something. They sat locked in their battle, the quiet only interrupted by the occasional footsteps outside.

He faked a yawn, reaching up to cover his mouth. _‘I’m tired. See you in the morning?’_ He didn’t wait for a reply, clattering his bowl and chopsticks loudly as he pushed the chair back with a scrape.

Mam grabbed his arm to stall him and planted a kiss on his forehead. “Goodnight.”

“Sleep tight,” Auntie Erel said, ruffling his hair.

He waved goodbye as he went through the doorway at the back of the room. Instead of heading to the ladder up to his cot in the rafters, however, he leaned against the wall out of their sight and listened.

They were arguing in furtive whispers, too quiet for Link to catch anything but scraps. He listened doggedly, waiting. He knew they’d be loud enough soon.

“—ideas in his head!” Mam was saying. Her shadow gestured emphatically, disfigured by the firelight.

Auntie Erel replied softly, and Mam’s voice was rising as she responded. “And I won’t let him! You don’t understand—”

He heard a scrape, the clatter of a stool hitting the brick floor. “You aren’t the only one that has buried a family.” All the levity had left Auntie Erel’s voice; a thorn once again materialising from under the layers of verdant leaves. “But I know. I know, Merrian. I’m sorry.”

There was no audible reply from Mam. Abruptly, he heard what sounded like a sob, accompanied by Auntie Erel’s whispering. The noises multiplied, tearing at their neat edges to bleed into uneven breathing and muffled cries.

Link wiped at the sudden prickling in his eyes. He turned away silently, climbed the ladder to his cot. Blinking at the small circle of moonlight filtering through the attic window. The dust that spun slowly in the light.

Curled under a quilt that had once belonged to his father, Link tried to remember how he had smelled, breathing deeply. The quilt just smelt of dust and straw. He shivered, trying not to cry as the tears sprang suddenly to his eyes.

For some reason, his mind drifted back to the princess. Her mother was dead too, around the same time Da had died. Had she too forgotten how it felt to hug her mother? Could she recall her mother’s face, or was it just a vague blurring of features in her mind? Did she remember what she had last said to her—the sound of her voice, her laughter, her tears?

Link pressed a hand against his mouth as a sob threatened to leap out of his mouth and into the world. He shook, so cold beneath this old quilt, lungs seizing as he cried into his hands.

In the morning, he would wake up to find dried scabs in a semi-circle on his hand where he’d bitten himself. Thankfully, no one had noticed him crying.

*

“Are we there yet?” The question was directed to no one in particular, asked by the son of the horse-master, Kotoh. They were quite close, but the last time they’d told Miku this was five minutes ago, so no one bothered to respond.

Link resisted the urge to shove him off the narrow path as the boy repeated the question, tone even whinier than before. That would not be taken well from the prophesied Hero of Hyrule though. He resorted to a hard glare that immediately turned into a tight-lipped smile when Mam peered over.

The effect seemed to have not been ruined; Miku clamped his jaw shut and stared, unblinking, at his boots.

Link turned back around and smirked to himself, though his smugness was short-lived. Miku was the only other person his age on the trip. A few servants were offered stations escorting a few minor nobles to visit the Zora, Mam had told him. Something about territory and a feast together. So, it was all old people too busy with duties to practise fighting with him. Not that Miku would have agreed to it anyway. Most of the other children gave Link a wide berth.

He didn’t care and he liked being alone; that’s what he told himself. He’d just follow Mam around. She was the only one who understood him anyway. Still, he huffed and crossed his arms, stomping a little. 

His mood had not improved when the gorge opened up to reveal the crystal bridges stretching between glittering pillars of rock, water a solid blue from this high up. The party marvelled at the sight, enraptured by the plays of sunlight with the foreign materials. Link, meanwhile, was trying to decide whether he would have been more unhappy in the company of his benevolent princess or alone as his mother completed her duties as cook.

Link did not even glance up once at the intricate palace of the Zora as the Hylians arrived, a motley smudge of brown against the overwhelming blue of the city’s centre square. One of the nobles was talking, a minor lord of some eastern territory—Zelda had lectured him once on the importance of addressing them, as if he could speak in a way they’d understand. Link listened to a minute of the flowery declarations of peace before he slipped away, trailing around the back of the group before disappearing into the gathered crowd of Zora gawking at the Hylian party.

There was an odd chute to his left, water dribbling down its smooth surface into an open channel. He tugged off his boots and holey socks, shoving them into his satchel as he stepped into the water. A small smile slipped onto his face as he began shuffling through the water, following the channel’s path. 

He was still splashing about in the water when he noticed a pair of webbed red feet that had stopped in front of him.

“Hello.” The word was accented strangely, the sounds impossibly smooth coming from this Zora. He looked up into the brown eyes of a red-skinned (scaled?) Zora girl. He gulped.

She made a squeaky sound interspersed with clicks. Link blinked, taken aback. He realised she was laughing at him. “You are so cute,” she murmured. She spoke so softly, as if she were unsure of herself. Looking at her, Link could tell that she was the opposite of unsure. Even as she laughed, she was studying him like he studied her. “How old are you? In Hylian years.”

He held up ten fingers, then three. “Thirteen? That is precious.” She made the same clicking noise, but only once—a giggle? Link tilted his head in a way he hoped told her he wanted to ask her the same thing. “Oh, me? Well I probably look like a child to you, but I am twenty two Hylian years old.”

Link nodded slowly, and held out his hand, careful to make sure it was his right instead of his left. She didn't have to know who he was yet. She met his hand with her clawed red one. Her skin was cool and smooth to the touch as they firmly shook. “Mipha. That’s my name in the common tongue.”

He realised that she was waiting for him. Scrambling, he reached into his satchel and flipped open his sketchbook. With the nub of pencil he pulled out of his pocket, he painstakingly carved the only four letters he knew. _L-I-N-K_. He held it up to her, watching as she sounded out the letters under her breath.

“It’s lovely to meet you, Link.” He liked the way his name sounded from her, sounds all smudged together. Mipha smiled at him with strange pointed teeth, her eyes crinkling at the corners.

Mipha led him to the very edge of the city’s centre platform, where the water from the channel cascaded down into the depths below. They sat on either side of the water, gazing at the view of the midday sun on the crystalline canyon.

“Do you happen to speak using sign language?” Mipha asked him. He turned to find her watching him with those large brown eyes. She smiled as he nodded.

 _‘How are you?’_ she signed cautiously.

Link grinned. Her movements were near perfect. _‘I am well, thank you.’_ After a moment of shared smiling, he added, _‘How do you know sign?’_

“I am taken with other languages and cultures,” Mipha said in her distinct soft voice, eyes shining as she began talking. “I love learning about all these places in Hyrule, and their people, and imagining that I can visit them one day. For example, did you know that the Rito do not have a monarchical structure of governing like our peoples? They elect members of the public that they believe are worthy to rule. Isn’t that fascinating?”

Link nodded, enraptured by her passion.

“I’m terribly sorry if this is boring, I can stop if you wish. My tutor Muzu is the only person I can talk to about these kinds of things without his eyes glazing over, but he is just so prejudiced.”

 _‘No, I’ll listen.’_ He gestured for her to continue.

“And the Rito wear actual clothing like you Hylians; Zora are similar to them in that we don’t actually require coverings, but they just prefer it. It is incredible! What do you think they’re hiding?” She asked the question with such a sincere tone that for a second, Link thought she was serious. She clicked and squeaked at his expression. “Anyway, tell me something strange about Hylians.” She turned her brown-eyed gaze on him, mirth still brightening her eyes.

When he just shook his head, she said, “Alright, then you wouldn’t mind if I just asked you? For example, your people swim but it must be so ineffectual. How do you enjoy it if you’re essentially just floundering around?”

They talked like that for hours, until Link noticed the crystalline gorge had begun to glow a soft green-blue. Mipha must have noticed his expression, because she puffed her chest proudly and said, “Isn’t it beautiful? Zora’s Domain is truly stunning. I wish more visitors could see it.”

Link glanced at her, noting the wistful way she stared at the sky, so far away above the mountain cliffs. He watched her for a moment, following the curve of her nose up to the tail-fin of her head, the red of her skin lovely in the twilight. _‘I should go back,’_ Link signed.

She nodded, rising gracefully to her feet. He took her offered hand, realising too late that he’d given her his left instead of his right. He prayed she didn’t notice the marking, heart throbbing in his chest. If she saw it, all of the past few hours would be forfeit and he would have no one else to talk to once again.

“What happened to your hand?” She brushed the scabs on his skin, her touch soft. Link just shrugged, the tension flowing from his shoulders. Whether she’d noticed the triangle—she didn’t mention it. “May I?”

He nodded, wondering what she could do. The pressure of her fingertips grew stronger as she ran them over his hand. Her skin was growing warmer—was it glowing? Suddenly, with a flash of blue light and a searing pang of heat, Link’s hand was unmarked. 

He stared. Mipha smiled gently. “My skills are unique to anyone of my creed. Now, hurry back to your people; they must be wondering where you are. I’ve enjoyed our time together, Link.” She grinned, and he beamed back.

 _‘Thank you,’_ he signed, beaming as he turned and scampered back the way he’d come.

“You’re welcome to see me again for any other ailments you have!” she called.

He glanced back at that, caught her staring up at the sky again. An expression he couldn’t place had settled over her face. Illuminated in the blue luminescence of the city’s crystal, she looked almost like a spirit. Noticing him staring, she waved. He waved back, not caring which hand he used.

When Mam asked him where he’d been, he told her with a wide smile that he’d made a new friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi again! Hope y’all enjoyed this week’s chapter. I really enjoyed how Mipha’s character turned out — I always felt like she lacked a little bit of depth. Also, I modelled the bits about Zora language (it’s so weird how the all speak the same thing in the game) after dolphins, which is why she clicks/squeaks when she laughs; dolphins actually do that!


	3. in which Zelda faces the light.

Zelda was pacing, waving an arm at the ceiling as she muttered under her breath. The other arm was, of course, splinted and wound in a sling against her chest. She stumbled, correcting her footing with a number of thuds and a stubbed toe. “Bloody bastard!” she muttered, kicking at the too-long white robes that had just tripped her.

There was the telltale creak of the door, and then, “Your highness?”

The guard’s voice made her jump. She’d become so used to Link’s habit of slinking about the place. She straightened, allowed herself a deep breath to calm down, and turned around. “What is it?” Her voice thankfully remained flat.

“A visitor—Miss Tatria of Hateno.” He stood stick-straight, looking somewhere off to her left. These guards were so boring; for the past three days she’d been trying to provoke him into saying something other than, “Yes, your highness,” or, “No, your highness.” At least Link wasn’t a spineless, blithering idiot.

Blood thrummed in Zelda’s ears. Her jaw was clenched so tightly she could feel her teeth grinding together. Maybe, she thought, the magic would miraculously appear if she became angry enough. The idea made her want to laugh out loud.

“Let her in.”

She plastered a wide smile on her face as a small woman with strawberry-coloured hair slipped into the room. Tatria of Hateno curtsied deeply. “Your highness.”

“Tatria,” she said coldly. It wasn’t that Zelda disliked the woman. In fact, she was one of the best tutors out of the five or so that she’d had since she was eight—one for each year since. It was the robes she hated, the cold study across the walkway, the false smiles of her tutors at her inability to achieve anything.

Tatria either didn’t understand the tone of Zelda’s voice, or chose to ignore it. She smiled cheerily. “To the study then?”

Zelda sighed heavily, and nodded. Their footsteps rang out against the stone of the walkway. Clouds blotted the sun, blurring the edges of their shadows as they walked.

The room looked the same as always, furnished with a single wooden desk and its accompanying stool. Sunlight reluctantly entered through a single window high in the far wall. The entire place smelled of dust. Zelda sat, sagging to lean her cheek on her elbow. Tatria cleared her throat delicately. “So, I’d like you to begin with your breathing exercises. After that, we will begin meditation.”

The woman kneeled on the floor and closed her eyes. Zelda turned around and began to inspect the wall. This side of the room was thrown into shadow, with the one bright spot of light concentrated on the door. The wall was a wall. Stone bricks hewn together. “Hylia save me,” she muttered. 

Or, Hylia could just speak to her. Tell her how to harness the supposed goddess-blood that ran through her veins. Of course she wouldn’t, because that was too easy. Zelda could hope though. She could pray, and wish the Goddess heard her.

“I would hope that you are trying your very hardest, your highness, to complete the breathing exercises.” Zelda craned her neck to see that Tatria had not even opened her eyes. Her only movement was the slight shifting of her robes as she breathed in and out. She looked serene, every bit the priestess that Zelda should have easily been. She felt a lump forming in her throat. She would try the breathing exercises at least. Settling on the stool, she shut her eyes.

Zelda was calling out in her mind for Hylia. She imagined her (breathe in and hold) with hair the colour of ripe wheat (breathe out and count). She was beautiful, and terrifying (breathe in). Light shone from a point above her, washing the world in white. Hylia was speaking (breathe out). Zelda couldn’t hear her. She was fading (breathe in). Away, turning transparent, edges shaded green. Her face was blurring, her lips still moving in the shape of—

“Your highness. Princess Zelda!”

Zelda’s eyes flew open, chest seizing violently. Tatria kneeled in front of her, concern shading her eyes. “Are you alright?”

“What does the Goddess look like when you speak with her?” she asked, a fervent desperation in her voice.

Tatria blinked at her. “She—she is light itself. I speak with the Light.”

“I saw her, the Goddess.” Tatria regarded her with wide eyes as the words tumbled out of her mouth. “She looked like…”

Zelda couldn’t bear to finish the sentence, because Hylia had looked like her mother. “Excuse me.”

She stood up and shouldered the door open, the sound of her sandals on stone echoing in her ears in time with the quick thudding of her heart. Tatria was calling, and Zelda began to run. She tore past her guard, whose voice joined the cacophony. Arm thudding against her chest, wrist twinging occasionally. Wind roaring through her hair. Feeling as if her body was being carried away, leaving her mind to gather dust in a corner somewhere. The corridors cooled the tears on her cheeks. She wiped at the blurring of her vision. A thought bounced in her head with each unsteady step: Where am I going?

Where am I going?

*

There is a tree between the outer and inner walls. It rests beside the back entrance to the docks in a seldom tended corner of the castle, branches brushing the stone wall. The grass grows long and green beneath the shade of this great tree. Between its gnarled roots is a hollow, just large enough to fit a small girl if she curled up in this quiet space.

Zelda was no longer the small girl that slotted perfectly into the hollow, nor was she a grown woman too brave to run away to a simple tree. So she sank to the ground between the wall and the ancient trunk, leaning her head back to stare at the bare branches tangling above her, letters scrawled in a language she could not decipher.

She sniffled rather pathetically and used the edge of her sling to wipe her nose. Her father would hear about this—actually, no, the entire castle would hear about this before he did. The failed princess, did you hear about her? She ran out of her meditations, still a child heartsick over her damned mother. 

“Hylia, my Goddess, my Light. Hear me, please.” Her voice broke. She took a shuddering breath before continuing. “Speak with me. Let me hear you. I will listen, I promise.” She stared up at the sky, light filtering through branches. 

She was hoping for the sun to flare a little brighter, or a cloud to drift into a shape, or the wind to suddenly stroke her cheek with a soft hand. But the Goddess did not give her a sign.

Zelda felt herself sinking, tears about to spring to her eyes again. She bit back a sob, only to be interrupted by a loud mechanical clanking. It was a sound she was accustomed to: a guardian had arrived.

“—this one to the courtyard with the others,” a woman was saying. Zelda shuffled into the shadows of the tree. “Then make sure you have something to eat. It has been a long journey.”

She peered around, just making out the bone-white hair of the woman and the red edging her sleeves. Zelda realised, with a suppressed intake of breath, that she was Sheikah. The younger woman, who was quite tall, was also Sheikah.

“Will do, ma’am.” The woman nodded sharply at the younger woman’s response. Zelda heard her brisk footsteps retreating back through the doorway into the docks. “C’mon then, you big thing.” The Sheikah woman ambled into Zelda’s field of view. She shrank further, but watched curiously. The woman, Zelda was realising, was not much older than her—barely more than a girl.

The guardian glowed blue as it clanked past with the woman, chirruping and creaking as its lone eye rotated back and forth. Zelda knew they were harmless, but there was something about a guardian’s hulking, shining form that had always struck fear inside her. 

The girl was just around the corner when Zelda heard her exclaim, “Ah, Link. Good afternoon.” The guardian shuddered to a stop, its movements unnaturally languid. As Zelda watched, its eye slowly spun past her hiding spot to fix itself on something just past the wall. 

“We found this one near Duelling Peaks, outside Hateno fort. It was pretty unusual, actually. Haven’t found one so far from the castle since we first started.” The girl seemed familiar with him, her voice much deeper than Zelda had expected from someone who looked so young.

Her eyes flicked back to the guardian as it emitted a high-pitched whine. It whirred as a mechanical quake shook its multiple legs; shock carrying up into its body. She saw a blinking orange light and a small puff of purple smoke. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, it collapsed with a horrible, screeching clang.

The Sheikah girl exclaimed and leapt back. 

Zelda watched in horror as its blue lights flushed a violent red. The whirring had stopped, only to be replaced with an insistent beeping. Its eye swiveled quickly around, as if it was reorienting itself. Stumbling to its spider-like legs, the guardian fixed a blue eye squarely on her.

For a moment, Zelda could only think of what would happen to her tree. She had seen these things in action; it would be reduced to a smoking lump of wood.

She leapt out of the shadows, hurdling around the corner, right into Link. He stumbled, glowering at her as if she was a clumsy child. Zelda couldn’t even think of something to snap at him, she just pointed behind her, as if he hadn't already seen it.

The guardian loomed over them. The Sheikah was shouting at Zelda, her words drowned out by the threatening shrieks of the guardian. “—go, Princess!”

Zelda felt as if the earth had risen up to entrap her legs. She could run, but she knew she shouldn’t. Where was her power? Her courage?

“What’s wrong with it?” she shouted to the Sheikah, backing away as the guardian began to advance towards them. She didn't answer, tugging Zelda backwards by the arm.

Link drew his sword, stepping between Zelda and the guardian. The light glinted along its length, though it was a needle to the machine’s size.

Zelda wanted to laugh. She was shaking, legs weak, frozen in fear. This runt was what stood between her and a killing machine? Hero he may have been, but they were both just out of childhood, still growing into oversized clothes.

Her eyes shot the red line that had appeared from its eye. It landed squarely on Link. “It’s about to fire, you fool!” she shouted, pushing him as the sharp beep became more rushed. He ignored her and hefted his shield, adjusting his stance as if he was to parry a sword blow and not a beam of pure heat.

Glancing back at her, he gestured his head for her to go. “You're a lunatic!” she screamed. “You'll kill yourself!” 

The beeping stopped, replaced for a second by a dull whine. The next moment was searing blue light and an eventual, distant clang. Zelda blinked away the black clouding her vision, pressing a hand to her ringing eardrums. Fire crackled nearby. As she regained her sight, she only had time to see the guardian’s beam charging again: light drawing into the gravity of its eye. Link’s silhouette was briefly outlined in blue as the light flashed.

This time, she had the sense to fall to the ground with her hands clenched over her head.

When she opened her eyes, the guardian had collapsed. Its hull lay empty, devoid of light. A hole had replaced its eye.

Link was panting, his shield discarded beside him as he slouched in the scorched grass. Zelda crawled over to him for reasons she could not comprehend. He stared at her with sharp blue eyes. Strands of hair had loosened from his ponytail, and adhered to his skin. A single bead of sweat emerged from his hairline. 

He was bleeding. The first beam must have grazed his left arm; a hole in his tunic revealed swollen red skin beneath. Guilt clung to Zelda’s conscience.

She coughed lightly. Honeyed words stuck at the back of her throat; one of the first nice things she’d ever uttered in his general direction. “You are very brave. Thank you.” The words sound false, contrived. As if she was stiffly acting out a role she had to play.

Looking for something else to do, Zelda tore a scrap of dirtied cloth from the bottom of her robes and offered it to him. He took it and wiped the sweat from his brow, avoiding her eyes.

She glanced at the guardian again, a sense of kinship with it making her next exhale a sigh. She too was empty inside, too empty to do anything except freeze and scream and ultimately do nothing. If it hadn't been for her, Link would have killed it with the first shot, saving his arm and a wall.

She tugged at the seared grass, let it crumble to charcoal in her fingers. She heard the first signs of commotion; shouting for fires to be put out, the hole in the wall to be patched. People were beginning to flock to the scene, the ripples of the story passing through them, distorting as they moved further away. 

Soon enough, the crowd was yelling Link’s name. A man hoisted him onto his shoulders and began to lead the assembly back towards the castle as Zelda watched numbly.

As the shouting faded, a matronly servant-woman offered Zelda a hand, a practised smile on her face. “Are you alright, your highness?” 

Zelda wondered if the woman would have cared if she wasn’t princess. “Yes, thank you.” She returned her own porcelain smile. She could practically hear her gossiping about this later, the useless princess alone, slightly burnt, while some commoner hero was carried off into the sunset. 

“If I may interrupt”—the Sheikah girl materialised beside Zelda—“a word with you please, Princess.”

She bowed shortly, and then began leading them away. “I wonder if your presence had something to do with that guardian’s malfunction,” she murmured, with that characteristic deep voice. “Or maybe it was both you and Link together.” She leveled a look at Zelda, white eyebrows raised.

“I—I don't know. If you really wanted to know we’d have to do tests with the other guardians? I could absolutely help.” Zelda waited a hurried beat of her heart before she blurted: “Would you agree to that?”

The Sheikah girl studied her for a moment. Finally, she said, “It would be dangerous.”

“Of course!” Zelda could hardly contain the joy the idea inspired in her, seeping into her voice. She peered over Impa’s shoulder to see the serving-woman leaning towards them with interest, and lowered her volume. “But I don't mind. I want to help in any way that I can.” 

“Alright. I’ll see you tomorrow at the seventh hour.” There was neither displeasure nor excitement in Impa’s voice, only a cold curiosity. It reminded Zelda, unfortunately, of a certain short somebody.

“Sorry, what was your name?” She felt silly asking her so simple a question; a princess who didn't even know her own subjects.

“I am Impa.” There was no condescension that Zelda could see from her, no too-long glances or quirked eyebrows. It made her feel a little more warmth towards this strange, deadpan Sheikah girl. 

Zelda smiles tightly. “Thank you very much, Impa.”

“No need to thank me. It was you that asked,” Impa said. “Link also must attend,” she added after a pause.

A bitter taste had developed in the back of Zelda’s mouth; she could feel her lips wrinkling at the thought. “Oh, he is so busy with his training,” she said lightly. “He probably will not be able to attend.”

She smirked in a way that made Zelda think she had read her intentions from her face as easily as opening a book. “I seem to recall that he is your personal guard…so he will have to come anyway.”

“Alright,” Zelda said, drawing out the word. “Fine.”

Impa finally gave Zelda a smile, her lips curling prettily. “I will see you tomorrow. Goodbye, Princess.”

Zelda stood awkwardly as Impa strode off, arms swinging, in a direction that could only take her to the kitchens. 

She was smiling despite everything that had happened beforehand. Maybe she couldn't be useful as goddess-born, but she could certainly help with the Sheikah research. And, that was something she knew Link couldn't do—the boy couldn't even read.

With some new purpose to her step, Zelda began the walk back to her quarters, and the room she decided would be her new study. She only stumbled once on the hem of her dress on the way there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> impa is cool and i love her
> 
> also i realised i have no clue how to describe faces ever?? or when to integrate descriptions/exposition?? the show don't tell really got to me in primary school :(


	4. in which the Hero of Hyrule considers his fate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hh this is very short oops

Princess Zelda’s footsteps echoed down the stone hallway, undercut by the murmur of her dress. They said nothing to each other as he tailed her to her room—up the flight of stairs to the next floor, across a short passageway, through a set of wooden doors into the antechamber. Not a single word was uttered on the way there.

Link stared at the pallet that he slept on every night, threadbare sheets shuffled into the corner of the room outside of Princess Zelda’s chambers. A single candle was flickering on the cupboard beside it. He sighed under his breath, slipping his sword and shield off. As he turned around, the candlelight caught the whites of the princess’ eyes; she was still hovering somewhere between striding off and freezing in his room.

He blinked, waiting. She was picking at the edge of her sleeve, eyes downcast. “I really meant it when I said thank you for saving me.” A pause. “At least one of us can do something,” she said, laughing weakly.

Dull light glinted off the gold fibres of her dress and the modest diadem crowning her head, looking so different from the fiery glitter of her under the chandeliers and candelabras of the dining hall. He could not make out her expression in the dark.

Link did not know what to say.

“Why do I even try? You’ve uttered naught a single word to me in all this time.” That haughtiness had returned to her voice, the condescension that made Link like her less and less with each day. “You think you’re so much better than me, don’t you, hero? With your twiddly little needle and piece of metal.”

She moved closer. Link could now see the faint silhouette of her face, features exaggerated in the shadows. He saw another drawing then, a monstrous princess in the dark. She would hate it, like she had hated the first.

“Well? Are you going to defend yourself?”

He wanted to scream in her face. He wanted to torment her like she tormented him, day in, day out. He went to sleep with her veiled insults and woke up to her taunts. She was wearing him down like sandpaper on wood, until he stretched thin enough to snap. 

But he couldn’t snap, because she was the Princess of Hyrule and he was her guard. Princesses could do whatever they wanted. Their guards could not—even when they were the Hero of Hyrule. Link was still tethered to something at all times, whether it was the princess’ will or the inescapable pull of destiny that drew him along.

She stared down at him, the candle’s guttering light turning her green pupils to dark rings. “Say something, hero.”

Link’s hands curled into fists at his side. Narrowing his eyes, fingers itching to squeeze the hilt of his sword, to feel its familiar weight in his hand.

There was a time when his fingers had itched to clutch a pencil or his mother’s cooking ladle. But violence can be learnt as easily as anything else.

She leaned closer, leering over him. With a sudden jump of his heart, he pushed her away. Hands on her shoulders and a quick shove was all it was. It was the first time Link had ever touched her out of something more than necessity.

The princess stumbled backwards. He dropped his hands as if she had burnt him. Narrowing her eyes, she hissed, “Do not lay a hand on me again.” She marched away, each step allowing his lungs further room to expand. The door to her chambers slammed shut. Link sat heavily on his pallet. 

He shouldn't have done that; she would have all the more reason to bully him, and more blackmail to do it with. Cursing himself, Link tore off his boots, seized his thin blanket, and curled himself into it. He got up with a huff to blow out the little candle on the cupboard. The darkness was all-encompassing, but when he closed his eyes, he could see her snarl lined with indistinct firelight.

Link wrapped his arms tighter around himself, and rolled over so the wall was to his back. He fell into a fitful sleep.

A sudden creak awoke him instantly. He’d been dreaming of his father, a memory of a flowering field and a clear sky hanging above it, running about the plants and hearing his laughter echoing. Something had happened though and he'd gotten lost, but Link couldn't remember what happened to his dream-self next. The sheets were damp against his face—he realised he had been crying.

He opened one eye to see a candle quivering in its holder. Princess Zelda’s hair glowed in its proximity. She’d left the door to her chambers ajar. A cloak was thrown over her nightgown to ward against the chill. Her feet made barely a sound on the cold tiles, clothed in thick socks as they were.

A pang of envy struck Link, for his socks were worn thin at the heels and had plenty of holes at the toes from his outgrowing them. The next thought was a drowsy one, wondering where she was going, as he almost let himself drift back into sleep. He blinked awake, curiosity driving him on, and watched her pad to the doors of the antechamber. The candle was extinguished with a quiet puff of her breath, and clinked as she placed it to the side of the door.

Then she was gone, a shiver of movement in the shadows. Link lay there for a few seconds, thoughts still weighed by the cold. He could follow her, but to what ends? He could just roll over and go back to sleep. Was it not his duty, though, to guard the princess?

Link groaned as he staggered to his feet, dragging his blanket over his shoulders as a makeshift cloak. He slipped out of the door and spotted Princess Zelda a little farther down the hallway, dim moonlight rendering her a blur.

He tailed her doggedly down stairs and across hallways, until they came to the grand doors of the library. It was recognisable for the great carvings of Sheikah letters and symbols that adorned its wood. 

Link hated coming here. It was a great example of the worlds upon worlds that he would never gain access to, solely because he had been born of a lower status than others. He was the son of a cook and a deceased knight, personal guard of the princess of Hyrule, wielder of the Triforce of Courage—yet, he could not read.

Standing at the marble bannister, Link watched Princess Zelda wander down the stairs to the lower floor of the library. She seemed to know where she was going, ignoring the volumes standing on their shelves. A sharp right turn took her to the three shelves looming on the wall of the stairs, directly below Link.

He ducked, suddenly aware of the thudding of his heart. Peering around the pillars of the bannister, Link began to make his way down after her.

As he watched, Zelda reached forward to pluck a book from the leftmost shelf. Heavy clanking sounded from below Link’s feet; he nearly jumped out of his skin. Staring in disbelief, Link saw the shelf slide away to reveal a room beyond.

He leapt down the rest of the stairs, leaning in to stare at the princess shuffling through papers in a room that was unmistakably a study. She mumbled to herself as she looked, carefully restacking paper and rearranging books so everything appeared undisturbed. She wasn’t meant to be here then, he surmised. But whose study was this anyway?

Link shuffled further in, leaning heavily against the wall. Something clicked under his fingers. The bookshelf creaked suddenly and began to move. He just jumped out of its way before it shut with a thud, leaving only a guttering candle as their light source.

“Who’s there?” The princess thrust the candle in his direction and nearly set his hair alight. Her other hand clutched a leather-bound journal to her chest.

Link lifted his hands and backed away. She squinted into the shadows until she finally located him. The apprehension clear on her face immediately turned into something akin to disgust. “Ah. Link.” He watched her purse her lips. They stared at each other for a moment before she added, “You must be wondering where we are then. It’s my father’s study, though I’d assumed you already knew considering your status as his lapdog.”

He’d already known this in the back of his mind for many moons, but hearing her say it made him immediately feel defensive. By Hylia he wished she could understand signed language, just so he could prove her wrong; he wasn’t simple and he wouldn’t just let her bully him into subservience.

She sighed heavily. “Please don't tell him about this.”

Link squinted, smirking, just to see the stricken look pass over her face before it was replaced with a feigned calm. “...I’ll teach you how to read. And write.” Her words were even, punctuated by a sigh. “Don’t tell father. Please.”

She looked less like a monster in the candlelight, and more like a normal girl. Hair tousled, skin shining with a light sweat, eyebrows furrowed. Link nodded again, guilt prickling at him for genuinely making her so worried. 

“Good. Er, do you mind staying here while I finish doing this?”

He stood by silently as she poured over the journal, thinking about what she’d said. He wasn’t the king’s lapdog, was he? Yet Link had reported to his majesty with every single detail of Zora’s Domain, bar his actual conversation with Mipha—whom he had later found out was actually Princess Mipha. So, maybe he reported to the king but that didn’t make him as terribly loyal as Princess Zelda made him out to be.

Except, his majesty had also requested that Link watch the princess carefully, in a way that implied he meant more than just watch. Recalling all of the questions that the king asked Link about Princess Zelda, his resolution crumbled, bricks of it falling free.

He wondered why she hated his majesty, her father, so much. And why the king made a boy look after his daughter, and then asked after her health from him instead. Or why his daughter decided that sneaking around in his study was a better alternative to just speaking with him.

Link didn’t understand the trappings and suits of royalty, and hoped that he would never have to.

Princess Zelda huffed and threw down the journal. “Nothing. The foolish old man won’t even be candid in his own private journal.”

She stalked over to the fake wall and pushed a book out of the shelf. The doorway clanked open, and they strode briskly out together. The streaks of moonlight filtering through the library’s tall windows were blinding compared to the previous candlelight. 

They walked for a bit in a silence brimming with tension. Link fiddled with the edge of his blanket, loose threads twisted around his fingers. Finally, the princess interrupted the silence. “I’m sorry. About what I said earlier.”

That was it. No explanation, no further apologies or promises to be cordial to him. Link supposed that was how it was to be, curt apologies and a frosty distance maintained between them at all times. She would be allowed to snap at him, but never him at her. The princess and her guard—that was all they were.

Link told himself that that was how he preferred it, what with the constant mockery and disagreements.

“Goodnight.” The quietly mumbled word drew him out of his pondering. As he stared at her, she gave him a tight-lipped, almost-smile.

Before he could find an appropriate way to respond, she’d turned and marched into her bed-chambers. 

Link sat heavily on his pallet, blanket falling out of his hands to pool at his back. Had he read the entire situation wrong? 

Maybe he was an idiot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you ALL for sticking with this story!! i am so grateful for you guys, esp the regular readers/commenters (you guys know who you are and i love you).
> 
> also this is SLOW slow burn so i hope you guys are fine with that. i also do not plan this at all and just write whatever comes to mind but you know what? i’m vibing and i hope you are too
> 
> anywayS see you next week!!!


	5. in which Zelda sees her future.

It was in the blue, pre-dawn hours that Zelda quietly made her bed—as a child, her mother had always insisted that she do it herself—and changed into a pair of trousers and her blue tunic. She tidied up the small space on top of the cabinet by the window, which had only a painting of a blonde, green-eyed woman, a vase with one flower, and an unlit candle with wax scented of honey.

“Morning, mother,” she murmured. “I’ll try to find you a new flower today. Maybe silent princess?”

She was aware of how ridiculous it was to speak to a portrait of her mother, but it was a quiet solace to her. There were no maids-in-waiting to look after her: her father insisted she lived independently like a priest on a pilgrimage, given no company unless he deemed them worthy. So, maybe she needed to speak to a portrait of her mother to remain close to sane. 

It was against the weight of her father’s watchful gaze that Zelda crept into the antechamber where Link slept. As she strode in, he sat straight up. No bleary blinking, groaning, or stretching of muscles. He just stood and collected his weapons.

“We are meeting Impa in the courtyard,” she told him shortly, trying to forget the memory of seeing him the night before. His blue eyes flashing in the dark, watching her, slowly collecting her secrets and pulling her apart.

He nodded, face as blank as ever. “Please try to be discreet,” she added, as if he wasn’t the quietest person she knew.

Zelda opened the door with a crack, peering furtively to see if her father had suddenly decided she needed more guards than the future Hero of Hyrule himself. She saw no one, and sighed under her breath.

The walk to the courtyard was one of constant glances over her shoulder, of jolting at imagined movements in the shadows, and hissing at Link to walk quieter. It had become an old habit, antagonising him. But he acted so little like a person that Zelda found it easy to keep going.

They had just reached the courtyard, skirting around the gatehouse. The sky had brightened slightly, clouds more grey than blue now.

“Princess.”

Zelda jumped at the voice, turning to see Impa step out of the shadows, white hair swishing quietly at her back and a wide conical hat shadowing her face. She recovered her wits, and said imperiously, “Impa. Good morning.”

She nodded. “This way.”

Zelda was expecting her to walk in the direction of the front gate. Instead, Impa began heading back into the castle. When Zelda didn’t follow, Impa said without turning, “Your father does not want you leaving the castle without his permission, yes?”

She began walking away, everything that needed to be said apparently said. After a moment of perplexed consideration, Zelda realised that she was a fool. Of course her father would have guards posted at the front gate, and those guards would most likely have orders to not let her leave.

Hurrying to catch up to Impa, Link an ever-present shadow behind her, she asked breathlessly, “Where are we going?”

“Hyrule Field,” was her answer. 

“Why?”

“It’s far away from the castle and Castle-Town.”

Zelda was beginning to realise that Impa was frustratingly cryptic at times. “Alright, but what are we doing that requires distance?”

Impa sighed softly. It wasn’t an act of malice, but the gesture still pricked a little at Zelda. “You are aware that we are preparing for war?”

The air outside was still and crisp as Zelda processed Impa’s words, a split-second’s worth of thoughts flashing through her. She had never considered war as the reason for their research of Sheikah technology. A search for knowledge, maybe; looking for power was more likely. But war?

She sputtered a bit as she exclaimed, “With who?” She felt weak all of a sudden. How had she never known during all those years of research? The reincarnation of the Goddess kept in the dark about events that greatly concerned her.

“The Calamity.” Zelda had known this, but Impa’s quiet nonchalance terrified her. “Monster attacks have been growing more frequent over the years,” she continued. Her eyes softened around the edges as she saw Zelda’s expression. “I do not wish to meddle with your affairs, but has your father not told you any of this?”

Zelda’s stomach was trying to climb up her windpipe. She felt suddenly, ridiculously, like crying. It seemed she was just a pawn in her father’s war. She glanced at Link, found the corners of his eyes tight. Maybe they were both pawns then.

“He has not. I—I won’t pretend to understand him.” Zelda pinned her eyes on a spot on the horizon, blinking hard.

Impa could only nod helplessly. “I am sorry,” she said simply. Zelda did not need her to explain what she was sorry for; all three of them knew the fates that awaited them in their eventual collision with destiny.

*

The grass stirred with abstract shapes of shadows and early sunshine. A group of Sheikah stood by a hulking guardian, striking in the softness of the field.

“Sister, you are late. And I see you have brought some Hylian children to attend our deadly experiments.” A Sheikah woman was striding towards the group, her hair cropped short and skin free of the blue ink that adorned Impa’s. 

Zelda held back a scoff at being called a child. Either this woman knew not who she was, or she did not care. “I know who you are, princess,” she said, as if reading Zelda's mind. “Stay, if you wish. Do not be underfoot.”

She marched off, calling orders to the other two Sheikah and fiddling with some sort of glowing slab.

Impa pursed her lips, adjusting the strap of her hat. “My elder sister, Purah. She does not mean to be rude, she is simply…” She trailed off. “Blunt.”

Zelda cracked a smile. “More than a little blunt, I'd say.”

A small smile graced Impa’s lips. “Maybe. She was less like this as a child. The pressures of aging, I would presume.”

Link cleared his throat from behind them. They turned to look at him, and he began fluttering and shaping his fingers in a flurry. Impa nodded as she watched (listened?) and Zelda felt quite the fool.

Of course he could communicate in some way; how had she never even considered something else? She had assumed for these six moons that he was just not replying out of petulance, not necessity. By Hylia was she a simpleton.

“He said that we should investigate what the slab is. And also asks if one of us could ask about whether reflecting guardian beams is a reliable method of defending against them.”

She glanced at Link to see him staring pointedly at her as he signed something else to Impa. “He also said he is willing to teach you signed language if you teach him to write and read.”

Zelda flushed, a mixture of embarrassment and guilt coursing through her. “I will go ask then…” she muttered, turning and hurrying away.

She slowed as she approached the group of Sheikah. They towered over her in height, and it seemed in almost everything else. “Er, hello. I'm not sure if you heard about this, but yesterday Link managed to destroy a guardian by reflecting its beam back at it. We were wondering if that is a reliable method of defending against them?” she blurted the words in a stream, the collar of her tunic itching her skin.

Purah nodded briskly. “I believe it is. I will have to ask him his exact method for doing so, as such instances have not been written about before.”

“Link said that he was told of it in a story of the last Calamity.” Zelda jumped as Impa interjected from behind her. They must have followed.

Purah snorted. “A children’s story was what led you to risk your life?” 

Zelda watched Link nod, his jaw clenched and eyes narrowed as if he was posing a challenge. “He says, ‘Yes, it did. And what of it?’” Impa translated with a quirk of her lips.

As Purah released a loud laugh, Zelda hid a small smile. He may have been courageous, but there was nearly nothing to separate bravery and stupidity, in her ever-so-humble opinion. 

Purah began tapping the slab, brow furrowed in concentration. She seemed to have quickly forgotten whatever she was laughing at. “Did you see how it died? Any theories as to how its beam was able to destroy it in one hit?”

“I think the beam was reflected straight back into its eye—a possible weak spot, perhaps?” Impa was saying, standing beside Purah with her arms clasped behind her back. 

Zelda peered at the guardian and noted the small size of its eye to the rest of it. She wondered, not for the first time, how Link had even managed that.

Zelda skirted around the Sheikah as they experimented with shooting beams and reflecting them with shields—Link right in the middle of it all. She felt that maybe it should have been her there instead; this was, after all, something she had wanted. But he had been the one to destroy that guardian, not her. She was just the one that had distracted him. A familiar twist of resentment turned in her stomach.

She turned away, drifting towards Purah, who was standing a little apart from the group still sliding her fingers over the flat surface of the slab. She let out a sigh and roughly pushed the red spectacles she was wearing up her nose. Behind them, the guardian let out a high-pitched whine and there was an explosion, accompanied by their shouts.

Zelda managed to convince Purah to allow her to look at the strange slab, which she called the Sheikah Slate. Its screen glowed when Zelda touched it, emitting a pleasant tone as she began to tap its various features to Purah’s obvious chagrin. “It's not a toy. Please be careful, Zelda.”

Hearing just her name from a stranger was so profoundly refreshing that Zelda’s breath caught in her throat. There were no pretences of inferiority, no expectations, or hidden agendas. Just a rather annoyed Sheikah woman trying to stop a thirteen year old from destroying her life’s work.

She swallowed thickly and distracted herself with the Slate. It had a number of runes on it which Purah squawked at her not to touch from over her shoulder. “What's this one?” She pointed at the last one across, a green rectangle with strange protrusions.

“It's called ‘Camera’, and I can't foresee it killing us in any way, so you may test it.” 

Zelda stifled a delighted gasp, and stabbed a finger at the icon. It expanded with a chirrup. She watched, awestruck, as some sort of recreation of her feet appeared. When she moved the slate, the picture changed too. “It—it creates very realistic recreations?” she exclaimed to no one in particular.

Purah was watching her with a strange, soft smile. “Yes, and if you press the top-button on the right—”

She tapped it, and Zelda eagerly pointed the slate at her to capture her on its surface. It made a satisfying click noise as Purah finished saying, “...you get the picture.”

Zelda turned the slate to display the picture to her. It was a funny one, with Purah in the middle of talking and slightly blurred due to the movement. This was truly a strange device. “What else can it do?” she asked eagerly as she turned to snap another picture of the guardian looming over Link and the others. His browns and blues set him apart from the paleness of the Sheikah.

Purah eased the slate out of Zelda’s hands. “In due time, you will see. Now”—she slipped the slate onto a hook on her belt and secured it with a snap—“do you have neat handwriting?”

Zelda stared at her for a second longer than normal. “Why?”

“Do you?” Purah asked again, ignoring the question. 

“I would say so. But why does it matter?”

Purah took from a satchel a notebook, an inkwell, and a red quill from what bird, Zelda did not know. “I am putting you in charge of the research notes. I will collect you each morning at dawn from Hyrule Castle and return you before dusk. Link will also come.” She levered a look at Zelda over her round spectacles. “Will there be problems with your father?”

Zelda wondered, briefly, why Purah did not refer to him as his majesty as Impa had. Or why she was letting a thirteen year old have this rather important job. She didn’t ask either of these questions though, and just nodded. “Alright. And no, I don’t think he will.”

It was a lie, and they both knew it. But what could he do? He was only King of Hyrule.

“Well,” Purah blustered on. “I would like you to record what Link, Impa, Robbie, and Cil are doing. Robbie is the short one with spiky hair, Cil is tall with the hat. You know the other two.”

Zelda nodded mutely. This was all moving too fast for her, but she dutifully went and sat nearby the group on the grass, the leather-bound notebook unopened on her lap. Its cover was, of course, red, and embossed with a strange symbol. She traced it: a stylised eye with a teardrop at the bottom, three triangles crowning its top. It was the same symbol drawn onto Impa’s forehead.

On the first page, Purah had scrawled her name at the top and written in large letters in the centre: ‘Ancient Sheikah Technology — Research Notes.’

Zelda unscrewed the inkwell, dipped the quill, and let it hover above the page. She wanted desperately to see her name on something, to claim it as hers and to know that she had written something of importance. She wanted to leave a mark in more physicality than she could imagining she heard the Goddess’ voice, manifesting her power without knowing anything she was doing. 

As she considered penning her name, Zelda saw another future for herself. Trade in the white robes for loose trousers and tunics. Soft, unmarked hands could become calloused and tough, used for something more than prayer. Explore the world, sleep under the stars, walk Hyrule from the snowy village of the Rito to Hateno, skirting the edge of the continent. She could do more than be the princess locked in her tower, trying and failing, and failing again, to do what she was meant to do.

“Zelda!” Purah’s voice came from above her, and she quickly looked up. “Stop daydreaming, and write some notes.”

She smiled apologetically, and turned the page. The guardian’s head was twisting around and around as Robbie fiddled with the Sheikah Slate. Purah was laughing, Impa shaking her head.

Zelda smiled, thoughts of the future far off forgotten. As she watched, Link glanced at her once, caught her eye, and looked back to the guardian.

She could write her name later. She had plenty of time to make a mark elsewhere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> eyy chapter 5 done! Purah introduced! I hope you guys aren’t hoping for the romance sooner rather than later, because these two idiots have to be friends before they fall in love; I don’t make the rules, I only follow them ;)
> 
> Anywayz hope the wait wasn’t too long, enjoy and stuff. Next chapter is Link’s POV so get pumped >:)


	6. in which Link and Zelda express their true feelings (not really, actually).

They were in the cramped room at the end of the walkway. Zelda was staring at the lone window high above them, presumably thinking.

He had awoken to the doors between his antechamber and her room thrown open, a cold autumnal breeze making him shiver under his thin blanket. Allowing himself a small yawn, he’d gotten up and strapped on his sword and shield. 

After a long period of waiting, shifting slightly on his feet, he decided that he would venture into the encampment of the enemy and find her himself. 

As Link walked further into the wide, well-lit room, he studied the various artefacts of Princess Zelda’s personal belongings, all strewn everywhere. A vague sense of an impending doom dogged his every step, growing stronger the further in he ventured into the room. Well, if he could call it that.

It was twice the size of his family’s cramped townhouse, and could have housed at least two families. A massive hearth sat cold at the far end of the room, surrounded by a collection of plush armchairs and couches. Stacks of books overflowed from the shelves nearby, and sparkling trinkets were strewn this way and that. 

Not to mention the plush four-poster-bed with its elaborate hangings and drapes, multitudes of quilts in every colour, and feather-filled pillows. It was worlds away from the pallet tucked into a corner, a blanket riddled with holes thrown haphazardly over it.

How, Link had thought to himself, could someone so rich be so mean? She could never want for more than the minutes it would take for a servant to bring it to her. There was nothing she couldn't get with all of the wealth of this country. 

For a second, Link let himself imagine a world in which he was this wealthy. His mother wouldn't have to toil in the castle kitchens from dawn to dusk. He could find his aunt’s travels. He himself could do…well, he didn't know what he would do. All the gold in the world couldn't buy him a new destiny.

“What are you doing here?” came the familiar, imperious voice. He had turned to see Princess Zelda staring at him with eyebrows raised. They just looked at each other for a while, Link too frustrated by her to back down today. Finally, she had said, “No matter. Come help me.”

And with no explanation, she'd turned away and walked off. Even though he wished he didn't have to, he followed her across the walkway to the tower room at its far end. A dog on an invisible but persistent leash.

So, as she contemplated whatever spoilt and entitled princesses thought about, Link was pointedly glaring at her back.

“I think this room is fairly watertight, but I'll have to make sure before I move all of my books in here…Do you think you could help me shift this desk for the bookshelf though?”

This last part she directed at Link. He quickly schooled his face into the passivity he knew irritated her. She frowned as she turned around. “Well?”

He nodded, careful to keep his expression blank. The familiar tick of annoyance made her lips twitch. He had to bite back a smile at her barely veiled reaction. As he continued to stare guilelessly at her, she huffed and marched past him, the shadow of her hair throwing cool morning air into his face. 

The rest of the morning was spent shifting furniture in that little study. The princess also decided that she would take a gamble, and leave her books in the room. Link wasn’t sure why, but if he had to guess, the volumes and scrolls were probably contraband—judging from the way Princess Zelda carefully locked the doors and closed all her blinds before pulling them out from a trunk under her bed.

Finally, by the time the sun was directly above them in the sky, Princess Zelda slid the last book into its place on the shelf. She collapsed into the armchair they’d squeezed into the corner of the already small space; it was her least favourite of the many that littered her room, apparently. 

Link stood straight and tried not to fiddle with his too-short sleeves. “Sit, won’t you?” Princess Zelda said sharply, too sharply for it to be a question.“We can begin the lessons.”

He reluctantly perched himself on the edge of the only other seat in the room: a wooden stool half-tucked under the desk. The princess had busied herself with pulling out blank sheets of paper. “There’s a quill to your left,” she told him. He looked over, and found five. “Just choose one.” She sounded exasperated already.

Link picked the smallest one, and held it between thumb and forefinger. He heard a sigh from behind him. “I suppose you don’t know how to hold a quill, then.”

And then she was placing warm fingers on his, directing his hands around the quill. Link pursed his lips, trying not to think about what his majesty would say about what they were doing right now. He could absolutely not lose this position if they still wanted that townhouse.

After a little manoeuvring, she was finally happy with how he was gripping the quill. Personally, Link found it rather strange, but a small, proud smile had settled on Princess Zelda’s face and he would rather that than the frustrated princess. 

He felt like the small child sitting at the kitchen table again, as his mother minced carrots with an expert flourish and he struggled to get his chin above the tabletop. At least he could mince carrots nearly as well as she did now. He wasn’t sure if he would even be able to learn to write when he couldn’t hold the quill properly.

By the time the sun had begun setting, Link had carved each letter of the Hylian alphabet into the parchment, ink blotching the letter’s joints. He watched anxiously as the princess considered his work. Finally, she gave a firm nod and rolled the parchment into a storage container, tucking everything into the bookshelf.

“I assume you can't teach me how to sign until you learn how to write?” She was looking at him—and it wasn't the normal angry way either. 

Link nodded. She kept staring at him, considering him. “How do I say, 'You're an idiot’?” There was not a hint of a smile on her face, despite the many opportunities that the question gave him.

He pretended to think for a moment, and then signed something to her. She tried to mimic him with a stiff, clumsy rendition of _‘I love you’._

To thirteen-year-old Link, this was the funniest thing to have ever happened to him. He had to try very hard to not laugh as she kept signing it at him, and ended up making a choking sound.

“What are you smiling about, simpleton?” she snapped finally. Link rearranged his features and blinked innocently at her. “It doesn’t really mean ‘You’re an idiot’ then, does it?”

Link shook his head, furrowing his brows dramatically. “Alright,” she said after staring hard at him. _‘I love you,’_ she signed.

Link had to leave the room.

*

It was a cold evening. Zelda had wrapped herself in furs, and was squinting at an ancient Sheikah scroll with a book translating the characters. Purah had asked her to do some research on the weapons capabilities of the guardians, but she’d left it a bit late. 

She dropped the scroll on the table, the words uncertain in the tremble of the candlelight. Her head was throbbing, and it was much too cold to be in this draughty tower room. “I will be retiring now,” Zelda called over her shoulder. 

She breezed past Link, who stood expectantly beside the door. Despite the nighttime gales, he did not even shiver. Zelda often wondered what went on behind those eyes; it had seemed as if nothing phased him. Then, she’d seen the idiot smile—at her, even. 

The sign he had just taught her probably didn't really mean what he had told her it did. But if it made him smile like that, maybe she would keep using it. Just to know that he really was just a thirteen year old boy, rather than some untouchable reincarnated hero.

As he tailed her through her room, she snatched a quilt off her bed and threw it to him. She thought she saw surprise flicker across his face before it was obscured by the woollen thing landing over his head. “Take it, I have too many.”

Turning away, she hurried to release the hangings of her bed. She glanced back to see him wrapping the quilt around his shoulders, looking much smaller than he already did.

“Goodnight,” she called quickly. He turned and nodded, before shutting the doors to the antechamber shut.

Zelda blew out the last candle on her nightstand, plunging the room into a moonlit dimness. She slept with her curtains drawn open. Long shadows grew across her floor and over the walls as she rolled over and back again.

What would they do, she wondered, when this war came? She had no powers. All she had were her books, and her wits. Those wouldn’t save her on a battlefield. She blinked back the tears suddenly springing to her eyes. She was thirteen, fourteen in two moons. There was no reason for her to be thinking about death like this.

It was her fate though, was it not? Claim the power of her bloodline, or die trying. Save those she loved, or face the emptied world. She would do it. She had to.

Zelda curled a pillow to her chest and cried. She lay among her luxuries as staining tears seeped from beneath her eyelids. Fourteen in two moons, when her mother had been skilfully wielding whatever this was meant to be when she was only nine years old.

The shadows of her room had crept up to the ceiling by the time she could fall asleep. Even in her dreams she could not escape the voice of Hylia or her mother. She didn’t know the difference between the two anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hii!! finally got this baby out!
> 
> i’ve been writing a lot of random fe3h one shots so i might publish some of those >:) one is smutty buuuut it might be shit smut so that’s one for my wank bank i guess
> 
> ANYWAY this chapter is mostly fluff and it’s cute and funny so i hoped yall liked it (i guess it got a bit angsty at the end but whatevs,,)
> 
> i’ll be seeing you next time !


	7. in which the trio get up to no good (according to some).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sooooooo [checks watch] hi? apologies for the wait everyone but here it is! mostly fluff but i love them so it's ok
> 
> t.w. for underage drinking (as in, one shot and then they're off their shit LMAO)

Zelda tried not to fiddle with the rings on her fingers as her father’s chair scraped suddenly across the floor. “Today is my daughter’s fourteenth birthday,” he said, voice booming through the dining hall. 

There was scattered applause. It echoed dully along the walls as Zelda tried to sink further into the cushions of her chair. “She comes a year closer to unlocking her potential.”

Zelda winced at the blatant lie and tried not to make eye contact with the nobility staring at her. She kicked at the legs of her chair with her heels. A cold sweat had broken out on the back of her neck, and she wondered when the torture would be over.

She had woken to father in her room again, this time bearing an actual gift rather than a brown-haired annoyance. The aforementioned annoyance had been standing further back, watching. It was always watching with him.

The gift had been painfully on-the-nose: a Triforce pendant, rendered in delicate gold. Zelda had given a stiff smile in thanks. Her father just nodded, uncharacteristically quiet, before he left.

She left the necklace on her shrine for mother the entire day. But, as she was getting ready for her birthday banquet, Zelda had put it on. She struggled with the clasp for a moment. Looking at herself in a small mirror, she decided that it didn't fit. None of it did.

Crescent shadows stuck stubbornly below her eyes. She could've sworn she was getting wrinkles from squinting so late in the night. Red spots and pimples were sprinkled over her cheeks. Really, Zelda was very far from the princess she wanted to be.

And tonight, all of Hyrule’s nobility staring at her did not make her any less insecure. Zelda ate slowly, eavesdropping on the conversations happening around her. 

“Those Rito,” the older girl beside her was saying, “are so stubborn. You know they refuse our aid even as the monsters invade their lands?” She tittered. “They're asking to be eradicated.”

The man across from her snorted. He had a thick, whiskered moustache that seemed more of an attempt to alleviate his chubby, child-like face than anything. “What did you expect from those haughty birds?”

It was a horribly close-minded statement of him, but what could she expect from nobles? Zelda supposed that she should've known their names or their houses or something. She wasn't being prepared for court, however. She was being prepared for a holier purpose than that. She stabbed a piece of carrot on her plate with more force than was necessary.

“What do you think, your highness?”

Zelda blinked, a fork laden with honey-roasted vegetables halfway to her mouth. The woman across from her was looking at her expectantly. 

“What do I think about what,” she asked brusquely, before adding a softening, “Sorry?”

“About the Gerudo,” the girl beside her interjected with a snide cough.

“Well, they are skilled warriors and exceptionally capable of holding their own, I would say.” It was true; she had read all about them in both history books and the reports that she sometimes borrowed from father’s study. And she just knew. A shred of a memory tugged at her for a moment, but it had already disappeared when she tried to chase it.

“Hm. Wouldn't you say that they are rather…outlandish in their ways, though? What with their hatred of men.” Whiskers looked entirely too smug with his opinion for a man who had probably never stepped foot outside of a castle, palace, or country estate.

She frowned. “Outlandish to someone as ignorant as you, maybe,” she snapped without thinking. 

The following silence of the nobles sitting within a five metre radius of Zelda was deafening. Whiskers was taking on quite a bit of colour. She could see his moustache twitching as he struggled to find something appropriately passive-aggressive to say.

She decided she had better leave before he found a response. 

“Now if you'll excuse me,” Zelda said as she rose to her feet. “I will be going to find better company.” With a brief, empty smile to the nobles seated around her—who were either staring at her with open malice or plain surprise—she turned on her heels and stalked off.

She began to shed jewellery like scales. First came off the glittering earrings, then the many rings squeezing her fingers. Chiming bangles and the silly circlet that had been brought to her door. All of it rang dully in her hands, gold on gold. Finally, the horrible necklace came off. 

Zelda nodded to a servant, who just held out her hands expectantly. The jewellery was a tangled, shining mess when she passed it off.

She could hear the whispers of the court, but what did it matter? She was free.

As she neared the doorway, Link peeled himself from the shadows to fall into step on her left. In the hallway, Impa appeared on her right with barely a whisper. Glancing at the both of them, Zelda couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled up from her throat. Impa joined her, giggling like a maniac, and even Link grinned. 

“Father will have my head,” Zelda wheezed.

Impa nodded, soundlessly shaking as she laughed.“I will come to the grave every day to mourn my brave princess.” It wasn't even very funny, but Zelda’s nerves had no other way to escape; she burst out laughing once again, sending the other two into hysterics.

Finally, upon calming herself, Impa was able to interpret Link’s signing. “He says, 'Let's steal their drinks.’” She frowned a little as she finished translating. “Really? I wasn't expecting that idea from you.”

Before Impa could further voice the concerns apparent in the purse of her lips, Zelda seized her hands. “Let’s do it! It's my birthday, what's the worst that could happen?”

A few hours later, they found themselves sitting on the roof of Zelda’s chambers. The cool night air couldn't touch them, warm as they were with drunken joy. Zelda was leaned against Link once again, though this time with much more choice in the matter. Impa had her head in Zelda’s lap, and was pointing out stars.

“And that one’s called—um, wait, it's coming to me…” Impa’s hands faltered as she trailed off. 

Zelda giggled. It very much was not coming to her. “We’ll make that one my star!” she exclaimed suddenly. “And both of you can choose a star too! Then we all get our own stars.” She beamed down at Impa, then twisted herself around to smile at Link too.

He grinned back at her, a dimple surfacing on his left cheek. His entire countenance was looser with the drink, she had noticed. She would never admit it out loud, but she quite liked him like this.

They picked out stars in a triangle. It was their constellation: Zelda had the northernmost star, Link the southernmost, and Impa the eastern. No one mentioned the Triforce, though they were all thinking about it one way or another. This was their new Triforce, Zelda decided. She told the others this, and they all readily agreed.

“We don’t need this silly old thing anyway,” Zelda muttered, staring at the faint mark of it on her right hand. As if reacting to her spite, the thing pulsed gold.

Link signed something to Impa, which she relays. “‘You’re more than a bunch of stupid triangles,’ he says.”

Zelda managed to smile. It meant more than she could ever show. “Thank you. I wouldn’t call them stupid, but…thank you.” She leaned further against him. For someone who was meant to be protecting her, he was as skinny as a waif. He was also shivering. With a short laugh, Zelda turned to face him. “Are you really cold?”

He raised his eyebrows and sighed heavily through his nose. The clear exasperation prompted another laugh from Zelda. “Alright, let’s go inside then.”

Slipping slightly, they climbed from the roof, somehow. Dragged themselves into the relative warmth of Zelda’s room. The experience was all wrapped up in a fuzzy haze—no time to worry about the future, just the here and now. The fire inside was unlit, so they ended up tangled in a heap of arms and legs on her bed, giggling to themselves.

Lying there in the dark, Zelda tried not to consider that this was the least hollow the night has felt for years. She tried not to think about how warm she felt. Because if she even so much as stopped to prod at the bubble a little, it would pop. She would be deposited back into the empty void, dragging Impa and Link down with her.

Zelda wrapped her arm tighter around Impa’s shoulders. The poor thing was already dead-asleep, breathing even and soft. Seeing her so relaxed made a smile come to Zelda’s lips.

She felt Link shuffling behind her. When she stayed still, he slowly, ever-so-slowly, peeled the blankets off and staggered away. A spark of irritation ignited within her chest. Again with the nighttime wandering. Always the nighttime wandering with this one.

Extricating herself from Impa, she sat up. Ignoring the way her head spun, she tilted her chin and cleared her throat imperiously. 

Link turned so fast that his hair—which she was just now noticing was free of its usual ponytail—flew up in surprise. His face, however, remained unreadable once again.

Rather than reprimanding him, or asking where he was going, all she murmured was, “It’s warm here, you know.”

She could see him shaking in the winter night, the patchy sweater hanging limp off his frame doing absolutely nothing against the cold. Still, he said nothing. Just stared at her with pale, flinty eyes.

Zelda crossed her arms, lips parting as she decided whether to say something. With the alcohol still strong in her veins, she asked, “Why do you hate me?”

He blinked. Then he signed something which she, infuriatingly, could not fully understand. One of those meant ‘you’, judging from how he pointed at her. 

“Me? So this—this fracture is _my_ fault?” she hissed. Link threw a glance at Impa’s sleeping form, before shrugging with just the smallest hint of insolence.

She opened her mouth to spit something at him, but couldn’t think of anything else to say. What was there to say to someone whose response she couldn’t even understand? Though, she supposed that made saying anything she wanted all the more uncomplicated. Guilt joined the burn in her gut.

Taking a breath, she crawled off the bed. Shuffled towards him. “Go to your bed, if you want. But we’ll be here. And…it’s warmer with more people, right?”

This close, she was reminded of the last time. The memory tasted of regret. She found that her throat was dry. Avoiding his eyes, she stared at their bare feet instead. The carpet cushioning hers, and the cold tiles under his.

Link moved away. For a moment, she thought he really was leaving, and couldn’t fight the strange disappointment sinking in her chest.

Then, looking properly, she watched him negotiate a position in the nest of blankets and pillows they’d made. A smile appeared unbidden on her lips.

He smiled back, a sliver of moon reflecting the sunlight.

Zelda told herself it was something. 

As she settled herself into bed on the other side of Impa, she rolled over in her sleep. Lying there like that, hair spread over the sheets and intermingling, the three of them fell asleep together. Warm from the inside out.


End file.
